ANDREW BISHOP NOMINATES CLUB MEDITERRANÉE

“When I was young, I thought the coolest boat around was Club Mediterranée, the four-masted yacht built for Alain Colas to sail in the 1976 OSTAR,” says Andrew Bishop.

This extraordinarily huge yacht, 246ft (75m) overall, was designed by Michel Bigoin so that Colas could win the famous race from Plymouth, but with over 1,000m2 of sails it was a beast to manage single-handed.

Club Mediterranée was a marvel for its time, with cameras to monitor the masts and a hydraulic winch system. It was one of the first boats to feature a computer at the nav station and one of the very earliest to feature push-push-button controls from the helm.

“I was really keen on the concept of singlehanded sailing and a big fan as a teenager, and I had aspiration to follow in the footsteps of these sailors. Then I saw this boat and thought: this is just amazing. How can one person sail it?”